lights will guide you home
by Flora Obsidian
Summary: If the day ever comes when she has someone she trusts enough to say to them, "I was raised by the ghosts of my dead grandparents on a desert planet so remote that its total population capped out at ten thousand, and also they taught me how to use the Force," she'll need to stop and analyze just how strange it sounds when spoken aloud. (Anakin and Padme raise Rey on Jakku.)
1. Chapter 1

Jakku is hot and icky and gross and there is _too much sand_ for her liking, but Rey has always loved adventures. This adventure is especially fun, 'cause she gets to adventure all by _herself_. She's in a new place to explore, and there's nobody around to tell her what to do or what not to do, so even if she doesn't like sand - it's itchy and it gets _everywhere_ \- she can still have fun. Being on an adventure is kind of like being a part of the stories Mama and Papa tell her.

Right now, because there's nobody around to tell her what to do or what not to do, she's sitting on the little countertop of the tiny little shelter that the stranger and his wife live in and eating sweets out of a jar because she _can_. Mama lets her do that, sometimes, so she doesn't think that the stranger and his wife will care when they get back. She's on a moisture farm, like the ones where Papa grew up, but she's on a different planet than Papa's. Everything here is painted white to keep the heat out, and there isn't much green like at home. There aren't any windows. There's sand in the corners, and the paint on the walls is starting to peel. There are two bedrooms, one slept in and one that looks more recently set up. There's a kitchen full of food. She kind of wants to find the 'fresher because she feels all sweaty and gross, but she also wants Mama and Papa to recognize her when they come back, so she leaves it be and eats more sweets and watches the door. The stranger and his wife went out yesterday morning to the closest settlement for food - which is strange because there's a whole kitchen, Rey _looked_ \- but they aren't back yet.

She swings her legs back and forth, heels knocking against the side of the counter, and she takes another sweet from the jar, reaching down toward the bottom to get it. Mama always says she's not supposed to eat _too_ many sweets, 'cause she needs to eat dinner, too, but Mama isn't here right now, so she can get away with it. It's like when she goes to visit her uncle and her aunt and her aunt isn't there because she's busy working. Her uncle lets her eat _lots_ of sweets.

She doesn't like this planet. It's icky. There's too much sand.

The stranger and his wife will be back soon, because they told her that the settlement wasn't far away, and they wouldn't be long. Then Rey can ask when Mama and Papa are coming back to get her. And what their names are. She knows that they told her, but she's never been much good with names.

* * *

 _No! Come back! Come back!_

The stranger and his wife aren't back yet.

Rey remembers that Mama wasn't actually on the ship that brought them here, and Papa probably had to go get her.

 _Come back!_

* * *

Rey is six years old. She's been keeping track of how long she's been alone - 'cause she remembers things better when she writes them down, she starts scraping marks on the walls instead, one for each day. She's only been eating the fresh food in the kitchen, but she doesn't know how to cook for herself, so she's just been eating the same things. She doesn't really want to eat the icky rations bars, either. She tried one, once. It tasted like sand.

The stranger and his wife aren't back yet. Rey has eaten all of the sweets out of their sweet jar, which was nice when she was eating them, but she doesn't have any now, which is sad.

She finally goes into the 'fresher and cleans up because she smells _really really_ gross and stinky after a week. The water is lukewarm and runs brown for a while before it runs clear, but she doesn't smell as bad afterward. She doesn't think the water is _supposed_ to be brown, though, which means something is broken. She isn't good at fixing things, though, not like Mama and Papa and her uncle, even if her uncle lets her watch him while he's tinkering in his ship.

She can't figure out how to tie her hair up the same way that Papa had before he left - she's scared, just a little bit, that Mama and Papa won't recognize her because of it, but she tells herself she's being silly. Of _course_ Mama and Papa will recognize her when they come back. Why wouldn't they?

She doesn't have anyone to talk to, so she talks to herself. She unpacks her bag that Papa and Mama had her pack before they took her to the shuttle, running through the darkened halls of the big stone building while klaxons blasted in her ears- takes out the doll that Mama helped her make and props it up in a chair and takes some of the water bulbs out of a cabinet and fills them with brownish water. She can pretend that it's tea. She doesn't _like_ tea, not really, but Mama does, and Papa makes a special tea from his home, and her auntie likes it, too. She doesn't get to see her aunt very much, because her aunt is a Very Busy Person - her uncle said this in a very serious tone, Rey remembers. Her aunt has pretty hair. Her uncle is really goofy, but so are Papa and Mama, sometimes.

"Do you want some tea, Mr. Dollie?" she asks the doll, pushing one of the water bulbs across the table. "We don't have any sweetener for it, but my Mama says that sweetener just makes all your teeth rotten."

The doll seems more cheerful. Rey grins at him and chatters on.

"I know it's really hot in here, Mr. Dollie, but it gets really cold at night. I hope your clothes are warm enough. My Papa was a pilot and he wore orange just like you did, but I don't know how warm it is. We'll ask Papa when he gets back."

The doll doesn't answer, but she imagines that he nods back at her.

There are ten marks on the wall.

* * *

She's sitting cross-legged on top of the table and glaring at a cracked power cell when she hears the voice. Mr. Dollie is sitting in the chair opposite her on a big stack of ration bars with a bulb full of brownish water that he never touches.

 _"That's not something you can fix."_

She shrieks and spins around and nearly falls off the table. The man jumps, alarmed.

 _"Be careful-!"_

At least, she thinks he's a man. He might not be a man, 'cause he's all blue and shiny and Rey can see _through_ him, Mr. Dollie and the water bulb and the chair and the stack of ration bars. He could be an _alien_ man, she supposes, but Rey has never seen an alien like him before. Not that she's seen a lot of aliens. He's standing a little bit behind her, looking down over her shoulder; he seems worried, though more relieved now that she isn't going to fall, and his hair is curly, and he has a scar on his face, but it doesn't make him look very scary. He has long robes that look a little bit like what Papa wears, and sometimes Mama, and he's only a little bit older than the both of them, too.

"Oh," she says. It's been days of eating by herself and waiting for Mama or Papa or the stranger and his wife to come back, and her adventure isn't as fun when it's just a lot of waiting. But this is new! And Rey likes adventures. She pouts for a moment at the broken power cell, then back up at the man. "Are you an alien?"

 _"No, I'm not,"_ the man says, lips quirking up in a smile.

"Oh," Rey says again. "Are you a ghost?"

He seems even more amused. _"Of a sort."_

"That's _so cool_!" She beams up at him. "Do you want tea?"

 _"No, thank you."_ He looks more sad when she asks that. Maybe it's 'cause he can't eat, 'cause he's a ghost. _"I'm here to help you, Rey."_

There are twelve marks on one of the walls. Rey frowns at the man instead of at the power cell and wonders how he knows her name. "I don't need help. I'm waiting until the stranger comes back, and then I'm waiting until Papa comes back with Mama."

 _"Rey..."_ The ghost has a strange expression. _"Rey, the family staying here is dead."_

She blinks.

"Oh," she says, suddenly feeling very small.

But if the stranger and his wife aren't coming back- Mama and Papa-?

"I guess I do need help."

The ghost's smile is sad. He sits down on the table next to her. _"My name is Anakin, Rey. I'm your grandfather."_

* * *

Rey is ten years old, and there are one-thousand, seven-hundred, and twenty-five marks covering almost the entirety of one of her walls. She knows, 'cause she's counted.

Grandpa teaches her how to fix the broken water filters so the water is no longer brown and therefore much safer to drink. He also shows her how to make real tea with the supplies that are stocked up in storage, so she and Mr. Dollie can still drink together at the table.

Grandpa can't drink tea. She knows by now that Mr. Dollie can't either, but she likes being able to pretend.

Grandpa shows her how to replace power cells when they break or run down. They've looked at the generators for the moisture farm and determined that the generators are going to break down sometime within the next decade. That feels like a long time to Rey, and Grandpa says she doesn't need to worry about it yet, so she doesn't. He shows her how to cook so that the sandy ration bars taste more like food and less like sand. He teaches her how to survive in the desert.

 _"There's a sandstorm coming."_

Grandpa doesn't show up all of the time. It scares Rey, whenever he leaves, because she's never sure that he'll come back again. Everyone- everyone _says_ that they'll come back, but they _don't_. Even if she knows Mama and Papa are going to come back if she waits long enough. Mama and Papa need to come back.

Grandpa promises her, over and over again, that he'll always come back. Rey trusts him.

She's still scared, though.

It's been a long time since Grandpa has visited, though, it's been three whole _days_ , and Rey startles at the sound of another voice in the normally-silent house. She turns to look up at him with a gap-toothed smile; she lost a tooth a week ago and she can feel the new tooth poking out of her gums.

"I patched up the cracks in the sealant, just like you told me how to do!" she tells him. "It's okay."

He smiles back at her. _"Good job, kid."_

He wanders off to inspect the patch job and looks immensely proud when he sees it done almost perfectly. Rey feels happy about that. Grandpa always tells her what she's done right when she does something and then points out what she can fix or do better. The sealant is _too_ thick in some places, so she'll need to go out and scrape it off if the sandstorm doesn't do the job for her, otherwise it'll start to bubble in the heat and make everything worse. She only goes back inside when he does, still not quite entirely convinced he won't vanish when she turns around. He always stays for a day or two, sometimes longer- breaking the rules, technically, he says once, but _masters aren't for me, kiddo-_ \- before he needs to go back to the Other Place. He tells her it's a bit like swimming, and while swimming is all fun and good, it's necessary to go back to the shore and take a break, to sit down and rest for a bit.

Rey has to ask what swimming is. She recognizes the word, remembers lots of splashing and laughter, but she doesn't have a concrete memory to put it to.

Grandpa's smile falters, fades.

 _"Imagine- imagine water, Rey,"_ he says to her. _"Lots of water, more than anything here. A lake a thousand times the size of this house. Cool and blue and deep enough you can be fully under the surface and your feet won't touch the bottom."_

That sounds like what she remembers, but she doesn't know _why_ she remembers it. The desert is nothing but sand, sand, sand, and she's been here for a long time.

Grandpa also tells her, just once, that Mama and Papa aren't coming back, either. He looks very, very sad when he says it- solemn, serious. Something twists in Rey's stomach, almost painfully, but- she makes a face and him and tells him he's being silly- he _is_ being silly. Mama and Papa are going to come back, of course. Space is really really _really_ big, and it's probably easy to get lost in a place like that, and Jakku isn't particularly notable. She just needs to wait for them to find their way back here, again.

"They're coming back," she tells him brightly. "Can you tell me a bedtime story, Grandpa?"

She adds another mark onto the wall (one-thousand, seven-hundred, and twenty-six) before crawling into bed. Grandpa slowly follows and sits down, though the mattress doesn't dip under his weight. Or lack of weight.

 _"Which one do you want to hear...?"_

* * *

 _"Rey, there's someone I want you to meet."_

The woman is a lot shorter than Grandpa, and she looks a bit younger, too- she has a long, long dress and her hair is done up in elaborate braids and knots that remind Rey of _something_ \- someone, maybe, but she can't place the feeling and therefore dismisses it. The woman has a pretty smile. Her eyes are kind.

Rey looks between Grandpa and the woman, who is also blue and see-through, and smiles. "Hello!"

The woman smiles back, and Grandpa turns to her. _"Doesn't she look like you?"_ he asks her.

 _"She looks like her parents,"_ the woman corrects, still smiling, and she kneels down so she's at a more level height with Rey. _"Hello. I'm Padme. It's very good to meet you."_

"I'm Rey!" Rey tells her proudly. "Do you know Grandpa?"

 _"Very well."_ The woman's smile only grows.

Grandpa speaks up from where he's standing by the table, looking at the two of them with a fond expression. _"Rey, this is your grandmother."_

* * *

Grandpa tells her a bedtime story every night that he's with her. He seems confused by the concept at first, like he's never had to tell a bedtime story or never had someone to tell it to him. He's not very good at talking, either, not at first. Sometimes he says bad words that would have made Papa cover her ears. Sometimes he trails off and forgets what they're talking about. It's better on the nights that Grandma is there, but even then, he slips up.

When he comes back one night, the sandstorm is howling outside, has been for the past two days. The power cells have failed again- they're going to collapse completely, soon, but Rey can't fix that- can't fix them _now_ , doesn't dare- can't, anyway, even if she wanted to. Her mind is buzzing, and she feels shaky, and there are hot tears on her cheeks and she can't really quite get in a full breath. Grandpa is a blue smudge in a world of darkness.

 _"Rey, what is it? What happened? Are you okay? Are you hurt?"_

He can't touch her. She found that out when she tried to hug him and fell through.

 _Come back!_

 _Please..._

She really wants a hug. Papa gives- Papa always gave good hugs, after she had bad dreams.

There had been a big building that she remembers maybe growing up in, and Mama holding her hand tightly, and the alarms in the background. Papa, saying he's tried to contact someone whose names are a blank in her mind, but the frequencies are all jammed. And then the face of the stranger, whose name she never knew, taking her by the hand on this strange planet, and Papa ducking back into the ship, pale and drawn.

"Th-they- they- they're-"

Asking where Mama was on the ship, and Papa never responding. A boy whose face was blurred out in her mind, though she still remembers how he looked like he might be sick at any moment, telling her to hide because what's about to happen shouldn't hurt her, it's _not supposed to hurt you, just get out, Rey-Rey-_

 _"Slow down, kid. Try and breathe, can you do that for me? Breathe in with my count, then breathe out."_

It's still shaking and she starts to cough, choking on her own tears and snot.

 _"Again, okay? One more, with my count."_

Rey sucks in a gasp, chokes again, and scrubs at her face with her hands and clears her vision enough to look up at Grandpa- he makes the cramped confines of the house feel a bit larger, softening the corners with a gentle blue light and making everything seem almost ethereal.

"They're- they're not- not-" She tries another breath under his concerned gaze, mostly succeeds. "They're not- coming. M-Mama and- Papa. They're not c-coming."

Grandpa goes to put a hand on her shoulder and fazes right through. The tenuous control she has over her tears vanishes in another sob.

 _"They aren't,"_ he says softly. He's told her before, but Rey's refused to believe it- still _can't_ believe it, not really, but she's tired and alone and she just- wants a _hug_.

"Th-they don't- don't c-ca-are-"

 _"No!"_ Grandpa's voice is sharper than he probably intends it to be, and she flinches backwards. He _can_ get scary sometimes, though she knows he doesn't mean to. He never gets mad _at her_ , but- _"Shit- no, Rey. They didn't leave because they don't care about you or don't love you."_

"E-ever-every-everyo-one l-leaves!"

 _"Rey..."_ Grandpa goes silent for a little bit. Rey tries to stop crying just so she can see again- that he's still here, that he hasn't-

 _Come back!_

 _"You're shaking, Rey,"_ he points out, infinitely gentle, careful, calm. _"Come on, let's get up, now, go sit on the bed. Gotta be more comfortable than sitting on the floor, right?"_

She manages it, eventually, wraps a blanket tightly around her and curls up into a tiny ball, imagines Grandpa is stroking a ghostly blue hand over her hair to help her sleep.

 _"Some bad things happened to your mom and dad,"_ he says. _"Your mom went missing. Many people died, too. Your dad blamed himself. He thought- that you'd be safer here, than if you were with him. The family he left you with were friends of his."_

She doesn't answer. Mama and Papa left her here for a reason. She wants a hug.

 _"It wasn't because they didn't love you. They loved you very, very much, Rey. You're here-_ **_because_** _they loved you, as awful as that sounds."_

She doesn't know if that makes it better or worse. She wraps the blanket more tightly around her. If Grandpa could touch, she imagines his fingers would have callouses. He's told her that he used to fight and work with droids and machines and ships. That's a lot of work, and it would make his hands all rough. But even if his hands were rough (something flits just out of reach in her mind- rough, calloused hands and a loud voice and a smile- _here kid, your uncle's gonna show you how to wire this panel back in- she's two, H-, she can't even hold a spanner_ -) he would hug her gently, and he'd be warm, and he'd stroke her hair like Mama did when she couldn't sleep.

 _"Do you- do you want me to tell you a story, Rey?"_

Rey manages to nod.

* * *

To be unable to touch is one of the most frustrating experiences of his life- afterlife- _whichever_. Being one with the Force has let him mellow, just a little bit- the pain and rage of the Dark no longer plagues him, has not done so for decades, now- but he has never _not_ been emotional. Frustration at not being able to hold his granddaughter, just once- and hurt, his grandson turned to the Dark, and his children estranged from one another- and loss, because self-sufficiency is something he's known how to do for a long time, and something that he can easily teach her, but she's _twelve_. Twelve years old, and she has been alone, sans himself, for seven years, and it makes his non-existent blood boil- and he can't touch, can't really interact, and-

He wants to give her a hug. Make some tea for her, with a little bit of sweetener, just how she likes it. Tuck her into bed. Go shake some sense into his grandson, who has evidently gone and dug up Vader's mask from where Luke had burned his body on Endor- the bastard poisoning his mind has convinced him that Vader's ghost is encouraging him from it, and the apparition of his grandfather that he sees - Anakin, trying to _shout_ some sense into him, for lack of another option - is just a trick of the Light, trying to seduce him away from the right path, from what he _needs_.

He hears the words Snoke whispers and tastes bile in his throat.

Also, on the subject of shaking sense into people: shake sense into his son.

Rey can see him. Rey _needs_ to see him. His grandson refuses to. He's tried to reach his son or daughter and been unable to every time- the Force works in mysterious ways, and he'd really like to have a _conversation_ with whoever came up with that, but that's aside the point- if he could pull his grandson back into the Light, he would=- if he could tell Leia where her niece was, where her brother was, he _would-_ he can't. He _can't_.

He can tell stories.

Padme comes to his side, laces her fingers through his, warm and kind and he is _so undeserving_ of her, of Rey- He sits, and Padme sits with him, and Rey should be able to peer out from underneath her pile of blankets and look at him if she wants to, confirm that he's still there. He starts talking.

Obscured by the darkness brought on by the sandstorm, there are two-thousand, four-hundred, and thirty-eight marks on the wall.

* * *

Rey is fourteen and has come to the conclusion that she is dying.

It's the only thing that makes _sense_ , really. She feels miserable, and someone has either poisoned her or stabbed her in the gut repeatedly, and there's blood all over the sheets of the bed, and Grandpa isn't there.

Mr. Dollie is within arms reach, so she takes him and hugs him close to her and squeezes her eyes shut.

* * *

Grandpa just sighs when he sees her, murmurs that she'll be okay and that he'll be right back, he _promises_. So maybe she isn't dying. He'd probably be more concerned if she was.

"Right back" turns out to be close to an hour, but it's miraculously short in comparison to the amount of time she's waited for other people. Grandpa kneels down at the side of her bed, just in front of her face, and smiles reassuringly.

 _"Hey, kid."_ He gestures off to the side. Rey squints through her agony at the other figure- _Auntie_ drifts through her thoughts for a moment before disappearing into vapor- it's Grandma, looking an equal mixture of sympathetic and concerned. _"So where I grew up, social taboo was kind of non-existent. You got any questions, you can ask me, but Grandma here has actually lived through it, so I thought she'd be a better option."_

Grandma starts to speak, only to turn abruptly and point her finger at Grandpa. She looks very stern. _"Did you just leave her lying there without explaining anything?"_

Grandpa cringes. _"Um."_

Grandma sighs. _"Rey, your grandfather is an idiot."_

Rey croaks noncommittally. Grandpa _is_ an idiot sometimes, but he and Grandma will start to bicker if she says anything, and there are more pressing questions. "M'not dying?"

Grandma settles down on the floor where Rey can see her without moving from her cocoon of blankets, and Grandpa sits down somewhere at the food of the bed, chiming in with comments every now and again that make Rey laugh, except laughing _hurts_ and there's a lot more blood whenever she does. Her legs feel gross.

It's a normal thing, evidently. Grandma talks her through the biology of it, how her body sheds the lining of one of its organs every month unless there's a baby, which seems like a bit of an evolutionary fault to Rey, but she doesn't question it. She might be more emotionally, quicker to cry or lose her temper. It hurts a lot, but it was like that for Grandma, too, and for Grandpa's mother. Rey listens carefully- manages to get to the 'freshers without getting too much blood on the floor. The water is starting to run brown again. Grandpa teaches her how to make tea that makes it hurt less, and Grandma shows her how to make wraps to catch the bleeding and gives her tips on how to get bloodstains out of cloth.

"Supplies-" Rey starts, except her insides still feel like they're being stabbed.

 _"Food will hold for the next couple weeks,"_ Grandpa assures her. _"No need for you to hop on a speederbike and travel to the settlement when you're in this state."_

 _"The first cycle is the worst,"_ Grandma tells her sympathetically. _"You get used to it."_

And then Grandpa starts another story, about heroes and villains and good versus evil, and Rey _tries_ to listen, really, but she falls asleep before the hero even gets off his own planet, and the story is a different one the next night. She feels like it might have been an important story, but- it's just a story, like all the others.

* * *

When Rey is fifteen, the generators on the moisture farm give out in the middle of a sandstorm. Rey goes to poke at them when the weather has blown over and finds that they've really and truly give up. They've been patched and repaired so many times she's pretty sure they're _more_ replacement parts than original.

Grandpa hums when he sees them. _"Yeah, those are scrap."_

She's been expecting it. The power has been cutting out more and more frequently. Her relatively few belongings have been preemptively packed, and Grandpa has been helping her refurbish an old speeder so she can travel about, and she's already been scouting around between here and the nearby settlement, trading scraps for water rations (one of the pipes burst, and now the water runs black when it runs at all) and looking for new places to stay. There aren't many nearby, but Jakku isn't the most hospitable of planets.

The farm was already run down when she first arrived. Homely, yes, but run down all the same, and she's been living there for _years_. It's only gotten worse with the passage of time.

Grandpa frowns at the generators while Rey brings supplies out to the speeder.

"I won't be able to get water without power. The rations stored here are the last, and the rest is going to have to come from the settlement."

The trade ratio between scrap and water is grossly unfair, but water is a necessity, and the beings who control the water can do whatever they want. Rey has tried to find a new generator, but the beings she asks have literally fallen over laughing before.

Jakku really isn't the most hospitable of planets.

Food, at least, she has in plenty. There were enough rations to outlast a planetwide siege inside the moisture farm, and she doesn't eat much. But water, _water_ is important, and water had been the most precious commodity she had to trade. Trading scrap had been a way to bring in extra; now that she's leaving the moisture farm, trading scrap is going to be how she survives.

Ironically, the Graveyard is her sole hope for survival. Ships she recognizes from Grandpa's stories- the X-Wings and the Walkers and the AT-ATs and the TIE fighters and the hulking shells of the Star Destroyers rising up out of the sand wastes- are crashed all over the surface, and there's plenty for the taking.

 _"I know,"_ Grandpa replies grimly before going back to his frowning and his mumbling. Then he pauses and looks at her. _"You're strong, Rey. You can figure something out. And I'll be here with you."_

She takes everything worth trading inside. She takes the rations, and an old pilot's helmet, and Mr. Dollie, and the tiny potted plant she's somehow managed to keep alive for almost ten years. It used to belong to the stranger and his wife. She takes the generators apart and salvages the scrap. She strips everything away and loads the ancient speeder with everything until it seems like it won't fly, too weighed down, and she leaves.

She winds up living inside an old AT-AT. It's closer to the settlement than the moisture farm is, which is good, and it's closer to the Graveyard, which is also good. It's going to take Grandpa time to get used to it, though- it's small, and dark, and when he fades into the world to see where she's chosen, he gets a look somewhere between panic and pain and immediately fades back out. He reappears when she heads toward the settlement the following day, where she trades in everything she has and comes back with fifteen portions of water, and starts spitting about thrice-damned greedy bastards.

There are three-thousand, nine-hundred, and twenty marks on the walls of the old moisture farm. Rey scrapes one into the metal paneling of her new home before she falls asleep.

* * *

Rey is fifteen and lives inside a destroyed AT-AT half buried in the sand and trades nearly everything under the searing Jakku sun for too-little portions of rations and water. Her hands are thin and rough and calloused. Her skin is tan and weathered. She can tie her hair up with her eyes closed, in the exact style that her parents used to do for her, though she can no longer remember their faces- or perhaps it's that she's choosing not to. There are a lot of things she chooses not to remember. She wakes up before the sun is in the sky each morning and the sand is cool enough to walk on barefoot, takes a ration bar, gets on her speeder, and flies out. She flies back to the settlement after the sun has reached its peak and sweats as she scrubs out the sand and grit in the scrap she collects. She flies to her shelter as the sun dips to the horizon and eats her only full meal of the day and drinks exactly half of the water she's been given, saving the other half for the next day. Sometimes, Grandpa comes with her to scavenge, but the sight of the Star Destroyers make him go quiet, and the unfair trades she makes in the settlement make him upset. Most of the time, she travels alone.

Grandma says she's getting too thin. Rey shrugs whenever she mentions it. It's not like it's _unusual_ for her to go to bed hungry these days, and one meal a day and a ration bar is better than no meals a day, right? Also, the bleeding has stopped coming once a month, so it can't be that bad.

Grandpa sits down with her one night as she crawls into her bunk, perches on the edge of her mattress like he's done a thousand times before in years past. Rey regrets the words as soon as she says them- she says them anyway, for a reason she isn't quite sure of. "I'm older now, Grandpa. I don't think I need bedtime stories."

It's not even _true_. She's pretty sure Grandpa and his stories kept her alive when she was younger.

His smile is crooked, like he knows she's lying. _"I know you don't, kid. Want to hear it anyway?"_

She flushes and nod, pulling the scratchy blankets up around her and settling in.

 _"Well. Here goes, I guess. But- Rey, Rey, you remember what I've told you about the Force? The Lught and the Dark? What I've taught you?"_

Rey floats Mr. Dollie over from where he's sitting on a shelf into her lap.

Grandpa laughs. _"Okay, point proven. So- fifty years ago, maybe, give or take. Galactic Standard. There were- there- a planet. Called Tatooine. It's a lot like this one, actually, too much sand, not enough water, ridiculously kriffing hot."_ His crooked smile gets a bit more crooked. _"On Tatooine there were- are still- slaves. And there were- there were two, a mother named Shmi, and her son, Anakin."_

Rey sits up.

* * *

It's a very long story. It takes nights and nights to complete. Grandpa doesn't even appear in the mornings after he tells it, drained from all the talking. When he does tell the story, it's like back when she was a little girl and he stumbles over every other word, like it pains him. Grandma joins them, sometimes, adding her own parts to it.

It's a story about love. Shmi Skywalker does everything she can for her son- cares for him, provides for him, protects him with that quiet ferocity all the mothers in all the stories Rey's ever heard seem to have. The son escapes the planet and his chains with the Jedi and becomes a hero, but even with them, he's chained in a different way. He can't save his mother. His love, so bright and strong, becomes his downfall. A terrible, evil man who calls himself Emperor sinks his fingers into that love and poisons it and turns it into something terrible, and the hero does things that he can't undo or fix. The hero falls, and the galaxy falls with him. He hurts his wife, his daughter, his son, his friends. Subordinates. Cities. _Planets_.

(Grandma is with them for this part of the story, holding Grandpa's hand and continuing for him when he cannot, no matter how many times he tells her that she doesn't need to, that she shouldn't be forced into a retelling over her own death. Grandma tells him that no one has ever _made_ her do anything, and besides, if she leaves, he'll get melancholy and spiral back into self-loathing, and she isn't going to let him do that again.)

The Jedi fall. The hero's closest friend is forced to fight him, but cannot bring himself to kill the man he had once called brother. The fallen hero is injured terribly, and his closest friend walks away, leaving him to his fate. Years and years later, that friend dies by the fallen hero's hand.

The hero's son falls and falls and hurts. His son's hand cut off, his own wife strangled and dead, the padawan youths slain, defenseless, his daughter tortured and her home planet destroyed, Han Solo frozen in carbonite and offered up as a trophy.

But the fallen hero's son is full of _light_ and _hope_ and something inexplicably _good_. He is his father's son, emotional and love burning bright and perhaps a bit too quick to anger, but he is his _mother's_ son, calm when needed, standing firm by his beliefs. The fallen hero sees the light of his son and reaches for it and falls again to his death, but he isn't in the darkness when he dies. He kills the Emperor. He saves his son.

The son becomes a hero and a Jedi, like his father before him. He and his sister and their closest friends build something good from the ashes of something evil.

And it crumbles.

It's far from a happy story. Rey cries. Grandma cries. Grandpa cries even as he forces himself to keep talking. Some nights he ends early, and some nights he can't start at all, but he keeps telling Rey that she _needs_ to know this, and Rey understands.

It's a story of legends. The names he says are names whispered in awed whispers even on Jakku: Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia Organa, Han Solo, Chewbacca.

A story of legends, but Rey _knows_ those names.

 _My name is Anakin, Rey. I'm your grandfather._

"Anakin Skywalker," she says when the story is finally, finally over, wiping the tears from her face. Grandpa his sitting at the end of her bunk, back to the wall. He nods once.

"Luke Skywalker- is- Papa."

Grandpa nods again.

 _"Do you... Do you hate him? For leaving you?"_

Rey pauses. Thinks. She isn't sure what of her thoughts are real, actual memories and what she's imagined, but she thinks she remembers being _Rey Skywalker_ , and- and _Jedi_ and _the Force_ and-

-and Mama, with her long red hair and how Papa's eyes crinkled when he saw her-

-and her cousin, the night that everyone left, telling her to _hide, Rey-Rey, just hide, and you'll stay safe, I promise_ -

-and she finds only sadness. Those names are names of legend, and legend has no meaning on a planet where it is only through the tangible that a living is eked out. Family is a distant memory.

"No."

Grandpa closes his eyes.

 _"Your cousin is full of hate,"_ he tells her. _"He was scared- scared, and much, much younger than I was, when I fell- and whoever took him and twisted him into what he is now started early. Power made it so he wouldn't need to be afraid anymore. He's convinced himself of his hatred so he stays grounded. He- I've tried to talk to him, Rey, we_ _ **both**_ _have, but- he doesn't-"_

 _"You'll meet him someday,"_ Grandma says gently, looking towards Rey even as she goes to sit down next to Grandpa and cover his hand with hers. _"But that won't be for a while yet. Even now, the Light still calls to him, pulls at him."_

Rey is glad that Grandma can touch Grandpa. He sounds like he needs a hug, and better one of them with hugs than none at all.

 _"I'm glad you don't hate your father, Rey. I don't- want you to turn out like I did."_

* * *

Rey is nineteen. There are certain things she knows.

She knows how to tie her clothing so that it keeps most of the sand out. She knows, relatively, when her cycles will start and end and how to preemptively wrap the dressings around herself to keep her sheets from getting bloody; she doesn't ever get enough to eat, which throws them off, but she has a general idea. She's gotten very good at getting blood out of fabric. She knows what is worth scavenging and what isn't. She knows how to fight. She knows that when more than a certain number of ships are parked near the settlement, what she brings back in will be traded for less. She knows that the man who controls the settlement and the rations stole the _Millennium Falcon_ from someone who stole it from someone else who stole it from Han Solo, the infamous smuggler, the war hero, her... her uncle.

She knows that somewhere far, far away, the First Order, being led by her cousin, who is a puppet controlled by someone far more sinister, is wreaking havoc. She knows that General Organa (auntie?) leads the Resistance, because the New Republic is too new and too unstable to provide any support. She knows that Grandpa and Grandma have tried talking to her cousin and her aunt and her uncle and her father time and time again and failed - her cousin dismisses them as tricks of the Light, and they can't _get_ to her aunt and her father because the Force is a load of bantha fodder (a direct quote from Grandpa), and getting someone who isn't Force-sensitive to see Force ghosts is tricky business. She knows languages. She knows her father is still missing. She knows how to reach into the Force, how to use it. She knows how to read its warnings before danger strikes. She knows how to move things with her mind- not well, but she _knows_.

Her grandparents teach her these things.

There are three-thousand, five-hundred, and forty-two marks on the inside of the AT-AT shelter. She does not have a lightsaber or the materials to build one. She knows more about the Force in theory than in practice. Since Grandpa isn't corporeal, he has a bit of trouble teaching her.

Rey is nineteen. She flies an ancient speeder to another wrecked Star Destroyer and takes everything worth taking and trades it all in for a quarter-portion of water. Her lips are cracked and dry.

She finds a BB-8 droid fallen victim to another scavenger and rescues it. Grandpa has taught her the languages of droid, and he has told her, emphatically and on multiple occasions, that droids are beings, not _tools._ The BB-8 droid follows her home, much to Grandpa and Grandma's amusement.

She does not know that this is the moment that everything begins changing.


	2. Chapter 2

Rey feels a kinship to the little BB-8 unit. It has a personality all its own, and- well- after so long of only speaking to Grandpa, Grandma, the harsh traders at the settlement, and Mr. Dollie, she just- wants a friend? And it (he?) is a very friendly droid.

Also a dangerous droid, considering the events which occur the day after she finds it.

She meets a man named Finn. There are stormtroopers- _stormtroopers_ , all white armor and black edges and impassive masks, and she can feel the revulsion radiating off of Grandpa as he trails after her. Her instinct takes her to the _Millennium Falcon_ , though there are sturdier ships nearby. Finn shoots well. He says he's with the Resistance. Grandma tuts and shakes her head, and Grandpa says that Skywalker women _always_ know when someone is lying, and Rey resists the urge to smile. She knows Finn is lying, but she doesn't feel the Dark in him, either- determination, yes, and something like hope, but no evil. She lets BB-8 tell her the location of the Resistance base while they try to repair the ship. There is a tractor beam.

Han Solo and Chewbacca climb aboard the _Falcon_.

* * *

"I didn't know there was this much green in the whole galaxy."

The planet is bright and lush and beautiful, and the sun glints off the still blue waters with a tranquility Anakin sought his whole life but could never quite grasp. Maybe it's something about being born of the desert. The scene grows larger through the viewport of the _Falcon's_ cockpit; Rey has never seen anything like it, has only heard the stories of faraway planets that Anakin has told her, has only heard the stories of Naboo from Padme. She was not borne of the desert like he was, like Luke, but he knows that she's either forgotten with age or blocked away her childhood memories of Yavin and the New Order; the desert has shaped her, turned her into who she is.

Her eyes have gone wide, lips parted slightly in shock. Finn, behind her, looks on with a brimming curiosity that a lifetime of conditioning couldn't quite stamp out.

Anakin stands slightly to the left of Finn and slightly behind Rey and Han in the copilot and pilot seats. Rey, lost in awe and wonder, misses the look that Han sends her way- something uncharacteristically soft and concerned for the smuggler. He thinks that might have been a look Han had given to Ben as a child.

He can almost _see_ the connections failing to form in Han's brain. A girl named Rey with a map to _Luke Skywalker_ and an uncanny ability for piloting and fixing ships, brown hair so like her aunt's and her grandmother's, hazel-green eyes like Mara Jade's- it's a willful denial. He understands not wanting to hope out of fear that those hopes will just be crushed again.

Still, he recognizes the look.

 _"Yeah, you're gonna take care of her,"_ he agrees, and then glances over at Finn. _"That one, too."_

* * *

Some people and some creatures try to kill them. They jump to lightspeed from inside the hangar of another ship and manage not to crash. Han Solo refuses to take them to the base, takes them somewhere they can pick up their own transport instead, because _he doesn't know_ and Rey can't find the words to tell him. Doesn't want to tell him? She doesn't know. Finn finds transport to the Outer Rim instead, and Rey- she thought, just for a moment, there was someone living and breathing who wouldn't leave her.

Finn has held her hand.

Han Solo offers her a job. She accepts. Grandpa smiles; Grandma reassures her, says not to worry, says Finn will be back.

There is a lightsaber in a box and a sudden bombardment of memories not her own and a Force vision so powerful that she falls into a panic and _runs_ until she isn't sure where she is, and she's managed to lose even her grandfather- but she hasn't lost BB-8. Or, rather, BB-8 hasn't lost her.

There are stormtroopers out for their blood. Rey's instinct takes her back, but she sees the mask of her cousin and her cousin gives no indication that he recognizes her. Grandpa begs him to see reason, and he sees nothing.

The world goes dark.

* * *

Long after Kylo Ren has left the cell in which she is trapped, clamps around her arms and legs, pinning her down, Rey feels as though she will vomit at any moment.

He has been inside her _head_.

 _This isn't supposed to hurt you, Rey-Rey, just get out of here and it'll be fine-_

Whatever Kylo Ren is, he is no longer Rey's cousin. Her cousin may be inside that somewhere, warring against the Dark, but the creature which ripped his way through her mental shields and rifled through her thoughts, plucking out memories at random until he found what he was looking for, is _not_ him.

 _When you can't sleep, you imagine an ocean of water and a green island..._

 _You're so alone._

Kylo Ren's eyes are not the hateful, vitriolic amber of the Sith. They are brown.

He is not lost.

But with her tears drying on her cheeks, with her stomach churning, with nausea bubbling up in her throat, Rey finds it hard to remember that.

* * *

Grandpa appears at her side the moment she gets out of the cell and doesn't leave. She runs back into Han Solo and Chewbacca and Finn- Finn, who _came back_ \- Grandpa, he came back-! and he stays with her as they go through the wintry terrain of the Starkiller base (even desert nights don't get so cold as this) and into the compound which needs to be blown up. Chewbacca and Han Solo have already gone ahead. Grandpa seems far too excited at the prospect of explosions. They rush in, the dying sun sending a dim ray of light into the chamber, only a long catwalk crossing the abyss underneath- Han Solo stands face to face with his son, and Rey can _feel_ the conflict within him.

Grandpa looks down at the pair and flickers out- flickers back in at Han Solo's side and pleads along with Han.

Han Solo rests his hand over the lightsaber.

Kylo Ren sees the face of his grandfather-

-and wrenches the lightsaber free from his father's grip and vanishes into the shadows- Chewbacca fires, only intending to wound, and his aim is true, and Kylo Ren doesn't slow, though the blast has enough force to shatter stormtrooper armor. Rey sags in relief. Grandpa looks up and nods, and Rey nods back, and he vanishes. Han Solo shouts up to them: "I'll meet you at the _Falcon_!"

She fights her cousin in the woods. Finn nearly dies. Kylo Ren pounds his fist against the blaster wound in his side, blood splattering in the snow underfoot.

 _The Dark preys on anything and everything, Rey. Pain isn't a weakness, but the dark can latch onto it, feed off of it. It's easier to hate when you're in pain._

Rey, still dressed in her wraps designed to protect her from the sand and wind on Jakku, thinks she has never been so cold in her life.

Grandpa is still at her side, not visible to Kylo Ren, a steady pillar of Light for her. She closes her eyes and lets the Force flood her mind- a scar across her cousin's face, but he is not dead and she will not kill him, not when he can still be saved- and the ground splits between them.

Chewbacca carries Finn to the _Falcon_. They return with what is left of the X-Wing Squadrons.

Stepping off the ship, there is nothing but an exuberant crowd sprawling in front of them. Sometime takes Finn- General Organa ( _Auntie Leia-?_ ) is hugging Han Solo ( _Uncle Han-_ ) and looking as though she might cry, and Rey-

Rey has nowhere to go.

She stands in the crowd and feels them surge around her- feels their elation- feels Finn, the point of light that encompasses his presence very dim but not fading- feels his pilot friend, Poe, and his worry- feels the relief of Han Solo and General Organa and Chewbacca-

She finds quiet holed up next to a little stone spire on the sloping roofs of the ancient buildings that the Resistance has commandeered for their current base of operations. Grandpa sits down next to her and says nothing. Grandma sits on her other side and says nothing. The three of them look out at the night sky and the stars.

"I couldn't have done it without either of you," Rey says. She can hear the sounds of what must be celebration coming from somewhere inside the base, but she feels little desire to join them. Too many people makes her feel claustrophobic, she realized that when she and Finn and Han Solo and Chewbacca had stepped into Maz Kanata's watering hole and she felt a near-overwhelming desire to get out- too many _people_ , how was there enough food for them all? Enough water? And also, she's never wanted to be the child of legends. She's just Rey. Rey with no last name. Rey, who forges her own destiny. She doesn't want to _be_ legend, either, though that is inevitable if she sides with the Resistance, and she can't _not_ side with the Resistance. She will become legend, and she has accepted that, but for now- here, in the quiet, away from their noise and their rumors and their congratulations, she is still just _Rey_. "I couldn't have."

 _"Rey, you're one of the strongest kids I've ever met,"_ Grandpa tells her. Then he amends: _"One of the strongest women I've ever met. And I'm so proud of you."_

 _"We didn't give you anything you didn't already have,"_ Grandma says on her other side. _"All that strength, that courage, that determination- that's you, all you."_

Something warm unfurls inside of her.

"When I die, I'm going to hug you for a week."

Grandpa throws back his head and laughs. _"I look forward to it, kid- but take your time. Please."_

"I will, Grandpa. Promise."

* * *

Grandpa teaches her the ways of the Light and explains to her the ways of the Dark. It's easier to fall prey to something when one knows nothing about it, after all- easier to fall prey when there is only fear of one's enemy and no understanding. She still thinks having a red lightsaber would be kind of cool, but red is the traditional color of the Sith. Blue and green are traditional of the Jedi, but Grandpa agrees when she says that those are kind of boring.

Grandpa's lightsaber- her _father's_ lightsaber- _Luke Skywalker's lightsaber-_ \- the lightsaber Maz Kanata had given her is blue. Rey likes the way it fits in her hands and the faint, almost imperceptible hum of its blade. She tracks down the locations of crystals she can use while the Resistance plans their next move. Most of the time, while she's researching and making little notes on a datapad that she would have needed to save for decades to trade for back on Jakku, she's sitting at Finn's bedside with the pilot Poe. Grandpa joins them occasionally.

Poe reminds her of Mr. Dollie. She doesn't dare say that out loud, but she does add another note, _go back to shelter pick up things_.

He's nice, too. Friendly, kind. He smiles easily, though it's strained when he does. He's only known Finn for such a short time, but he cares for him deeply. Rey wonders what it must be like to have a person- a stranger, not family- who would do anything and everything for you. After nearly two standard weeks of sitting by Finn's bed, after Poe brings lunch from the mess hall, she realizes she'll do anything for Finn and Poe, and maybe- the same can be said of them for her.

And then the waiting is interrupted when the R2 unit tucked away in one of the halls of the base suddenly powers back up and provides the rest of the map needed to, along with the piece she and Finn and Poe had brought back, that leads to Luke Skywalker.

* * *

Rey doesn't want to be the child of legends. She just wants to be _Rey_. Not Rey Skywalker, not with the weight that name carries, not when she still doesn't know why her father left her on a faraway planet and never sent a soul to check on her, to make sure everything was still okay. Not yet, not yet.

Finn still isn't awake, but Poe had started filling out his medical work for him and put _Dameron_ down as his last name, for lack of anything else. When he finds out that Rey doesn't have a last name- she hasn't told them, hasn't told a soul, and maybe she _should_ , but- he says he can share the name too, if she wants. Rey Dameron carries less weight than Skywalker. She thanks him.

 _"Rey Dameron-Skywalker,"_ Grandpa suggests when she relays the story to him later that evening, only half-joking. He knows the importance of names all too well.

Slaves are nameless or have names forced upon them. There is no sense of heritage when families are divvied up and sold to the highest bidder.

"No," she replies with a wry smile, closing a panel on the back of BB-8's dome head and putting away her tools. The droid rolls into her kneecap affectionately before darting off to find Poe. "My name's Rey. I'll figure out the rest of it later."

* * *

The base changes planets. Leia stops to see Han before she leaves to find her brother. She's tried to convince Rey to be the one to go, for obvious reasons- if anyone could get Luke back, it would be his daughter, but the young girl seems determined to avoid her.

"I'll look after her," Han says. "If I can find her. She's awful good at hiding."

He's the one who pieced it together first. Leia had sat down, weak in the knees, but- it made sense, but- how? Her niece had died when her son laid siege to the Jedi Temple. And Rey knows, she has to know, because she speaks with Poe and Finn (now awake, much to the Poe and Rey's relief) and the pilots and the mechanics but makes herself scarce whenever Han or Leia or Chewie tries to speak with her.

It feels like a rejection, and it hurts, but Leia doesn't want to force anything. Just wants to tell her she didn't know, and Han didn't know, for all the little comfort it will bring. It's why she gives up on trying to find Rey and send her to Luke, because that would definitely be forcing the matter.

"I know you will, Han," she replies, and stands on the tips of her toes to kiss him. "I just wanted to say I love you before I left."

* * *

Rey is sick, and Anakin is stressed and kind of wishes he could impale himself on his own lightsaber because he's _really kriffing stupid_.

Rey, who grew up on a desert planet, all alone and removed from civilization. Rey, who never received any inoculations past the age of six- inoculations that hadn't mattered, not on Jakku, so far away from people and with her never leaving the planet. Rey, who had been staying in a crowded Resistance base on a jungle planet for the past few standard months while the search for Luke Skywalker and a new base continued- Rey, who is now staying in an equally crowded Resistance base on another jungle planet, surrounded by more people than she has ever seen gathered in one spot in her life and more species than that which are native to Jakku.

He should have thought of this- should have remembered- he got sick himself, not long after arriving on Coruscant. Midichlorian counts are an extra boost to the immune system, but they can't do everything.

 _Come back!_

Rey's distress ripples outward in the Force and outweighs his own feelings; even as a ghost, the familiar pattern of self-loathing is easy to fall back into. But Rey-

 _No! Come back!_

He thinks of a shuttle taking him away from his mother and how he finally saw her again. He thinks of Padme's agonized face in his visions as she suffered in childbirth- of his daughter's horror rippling outwards as Alderaan burned- of his son convulsing on the ground under the Emperor's dark lightning. He thinks of the eternal peace of death in the Force disrupted by a child's desperate cries.

 _Come back! Papa!_

Leia has taken Artoo, Threepio, and the fastest shuttle the Resistance can offer to find her brother. She sends a message saying Luke has refused to come back- Han sends a message saying Rey has fallen ill. It takes a few standard hours for encrypted transmissions to be delivered over such a distance, but it's only six standard hours later when Leia replies with, _On our way back, Luke is with us._ A near instantaneous response.

He can feel the light of his children growing closer with each passing moment- pain, at the situation which has brought them to this- relief, at seeing one another again- even joy, however muted, that old sense of friendship still present after everything they've been through.

Anakin murmurs old Tatooine blessings under his breath and keeps his mind open, letting his granddaughter's despair crash into him with all the raging fury of a sandstorm. He keeps his feet firmly planted and doesn't let the winds drag him away- he will be her bedrock. It's the least he can do.

* * *

Poe and Finn don't notice him when they visit. Anakin doesn't mind.

Rey still hasn't woken up. Anakin minds very much.

He can feel her presence in the Force flickering wildly, a candle ready to extinguish at a moment's notice. There's only so much medicine can do- there's talk of moving her to other facilities off-planet. Sweat soaks her clothes and the bedsheets and pools in the hollow of her throat. When she opens her eyes, they are glassy with fever, sightlessly staring.

Luke is back. Anakin knows that every Force-user in the quadrant can feel Rey's mind reaching out desperately for something that has never come- knows that Luke can feel his daughter's pain and _he isn't here_.

He wants to march off and demand that his son get himself over here before Anakin drags him here himself. But Rey- Rey, his granddaughter, who fully accepts being his granddaughter yet is still reluctant to take on his name- she doesn't want to be forced into a reunion. She's had every opportunity to seek out her family and has taken precisely none of them. Anakin is leery of ignoring the choice she has made, old memories stirring in the back of his mind from where he's tried to forget them.

Poe mops the sweat from Rey's brow with a cool cloth and Finn takes her hand in his own.

"She's freezing," he says, and Poe pauses for a moment. "How are her hands so cold when her fever's so high?"

"I don't know," Poe tells him, and he sounds weary. Anakin knows that tone of voice- it's the voice of a soldier who has seen too many good people die- the voice of a soldier who knows he's about to see even more. He remembers his own voice sounding much the same, once upon a time. "Get one of those med droids over here, would you? I want to know what dosage they have her on, see if they can increase it."

Finn lets go of her hand. Anakin feels her spike of panic, muddled all the more by fevered delirium.

 _Come back!_

And the words slip past her lips, little more than a moan and just barely enough to be audible- but audible, all the same.

Finn sits back down without a word and takes her hand.

Poe bows his head, shoulders tense.

Anakin has prayed more than he has ever prayed in his life, these past several days.

"I'm gonna find Skywalker and yell at him," Poe says after a tense silence.

Finn looks baffled, an expression out of place in the dreary scene. " _Luke_ Skywalker?" he repeats.

"Luke Skywalker," Poe agrees. "He's been on base for a while now, and he's not _here_. He's not here, Finn, and look at her."

Anakin hadn't realized Rey had told them, but he knows then that when- if- _when_ Rey pulls through, the three in front of him will have a bond not even the Dark can break.

* * *

He falls back into the Force. When he returns, Finn and Poe have not left Rey's side, and Luke still isn't there.

He can feel his children's turmoil, and- no, _pleased_ is far from the right word, but they're coming to a consensus.

"Gra'pa..." Rey slurs, eyes half-open, fixed, unseeing, at some point far beyond the confines of the room. Her lips keep moving, but no words come out.

"I didn't think," Finn whispers, like he's afraid a louder noise will break her. Poe has moved a cot into the room. Anakin thinks, in theory, it's so one of them can sleep while they other stays awake with Rey, but the cot hasn't been touched, and it's tucked into the corner, out of the way for the med droids when they come over. Poe is sitting on the edge of the mattress while Finn has taken the chair. "They taught us this kind of stuff, you know? In the- the First Order."

"Wasn't your fault," Poe tells him.

 _"My fault,"_ Anakin informs them both, even though he can't see him and even though he knows Padme will be chiding him the moment he goes back to what passes for the afterlife. _"I've literally lived through this. Ought to be able to prevent people from repeating my mistakes."_

Kylo Ren comes briefly to mind. Anakin pushes his wayward grandson temporarily out of his thoughts and continues his vigil over his granddaughter. She's lost too much weight.

He feels anger flare up in the Force, strong and righteous- Leia, Leia- and shame, from Luke- and-

Movement.

Anakin turns to the door. It's closed, for the moment, but he doesn't think that will last for much longer.

He starts talking, because he knows Rey is calmer when he talks.

 _"So I built C-3PO,"_ he tells her. _"I was... I grew up a slave on Tatooine. I've told you that. It's hard to say, even now- I hate the word."_ But Rey is his granddaughter, and quite easily one of the few people alive that he trusts. Words come easier with her. _"I'd scavenge scrap, just like you did. See, I always figured that my mom and I would get separated. I was young, and people would- pay a lot for me. So I wanted to build a droid that would be able to help her and last a long time, even in such an awful climate. So I took all the things that other people thought were useless- I spent_ _ **years**_ _building him, Rey. He was mine. First thing that was ever really mine. Took ages to get the right power cells for him, but one day I found..."_

Luke slips in the door to the room when Anakin moves from waxing poetic about his droids to waxing poetic about spaceships and flying. Leia and Han aren't far behind, but he can feel them slowing, waiting-

Finn looks up and stammers out something to the man of legend, but Poe just tilts his chin up with the same defiance he had shown the First Order and says, "Took you long enough," and he takes Finn by the arm and leaves.

Anakin chatters on about Coruscanti traffic and bounty hunters in an all-too cheerful tone of voice. Rey's panic has gone down to a low simmer, though her fever is still at the boiling point.

"Father," Luke says hoarsely.

 _"...and then I jumped off. Obi-Wan's face was priceless, it really was."_ Anakin looks at his granddaughter's face, and his heart twists painfully in his chest. He stands. Turns, slowly. His son looks old and tired and grey. _"Hello, Luke."_

"She was staying with friends of mine," Luke says, like Anakin doesn't believe him.

 _"I know. They died in a sandstorm, and your daughter was five years old, and you had no precautions put into place."_ Luke cringes. Anakin keeps talking. _"Running from your problems and abandoning your children- people have done_ _ **enough**_ _damage emulating my mistakes, Luke!"_

His voice has shot up in volume, and Rey starts to grow panicked behind him. He freezes, and Luke does too, but then Luke pushes past and takes her hand in his own and bows his head, and she calms at the physical contact. Anakin looks at Luke for a long moment before leaving.

Outside, Han and Leia are watching Poe and Finn leave, and Han looks impressed. "Kid's got guts," he comments.

 _"Yes,"_ Anakin agrees, not expecting either of them to hear him, except _both_ of them do, and they turn to face him in shock. _"Oh. Huh. You can hear me. That's- new. Hm. You should go sit with your niece."_

"Wait," Leia says before he can leave. Anakin thinks he knows what she's going to say. "Ben. Why...?"

The question she trails off with is open ended, tinged with a bitter anger- why did my son turn- why did it happen- why didn't you stop it- _why_ -

 _"He doesn't think I'm real. A trick of the Light, so to speak."_ A pause. _"I tried, Leia."_

She doesn't answer- what is there to say, in the face of the unimaginable? But she nods, she _understands_ , even if she doesn't like it, and goes into the room where Rey lies

* * *

Leia drags the story out of Luke bit by bit, word by word, on the shuttle back to the Resistance base. His daughter, hidden from Kylo Ren while he and Mara left to defend the New Jedi Temple, except there wasn't much of a temple left to defend by that point, and Mara didn't make it out. He'd seen the horror unfolding in front of him, and for the longest time he'd blamed himself- didn't dare raise his daughter out of some uncontrollable fear that she might turn out like Kylo had-

Leia slaps him, then, but he kind of deserves it.

The shuttle lands, and the three old friends, once so close to have been family, see one another for the first time in close to twenty years. Han says Luke should go and see Rey, and Luke digs his feet in, and then they argue.

Most of the base knows Rey's name. Rey, the resident Jedi from Jakku. Han doesn't know why he never put the pieces together- looking back, he remembers another Rey, much younger and more carefree, a little girl with a bright smile and wispy brown hair who loved her cousin and chased Chewie around the halls of the _Falcon_ , shrieking with laughter whenever she 'caught' him, throwing her tiny arms around his leg and hugging him tight. But Rey says she had been raised by her grandparents, who had taught her the ways of the Force- and he knew it wasn't _their_ Rey, because _their_ Rey had no grandparents to speak of. They were a family because they had no other family to go home to.

But the _ghost_ of Anakin Skywalker runs into them leaving the infirmary, and he looks a little pissed off, probably because Luke's been back on base for a while, and then he looks surprised, and Leia goes in to see her niece and Han just kind of stares at him.

"You took care of her?" he asks suspiciously.

 _"And Padme,"_ the ghost replies. _"My wife."_

Han doesn't trust the ghost, but- Rey's a good kid. That's enough for him.

* * *

Luke sits in a chair at Rey's bedside, holding her hand with his flesh one, staring at her face, and his mind a wild mess of emotions in the Force. Leia works from her datapad, sitting on the cot in the corner, and Han tinkers, and no one speaks.

Rey seems to be the only one at ease in the room, the tension from before gone from her features.

* * *

He doesn't trust himself around his daughter.

Leia slaps him when he says that, and he knows he deserves it- and even if he were blind, he still has the Force, and the Force speaks volumes more than Han's glance when he thinks Luke won't notice and Chewbacca's low growl at the thought of a cub left alone.

But he doesn't _trust_ himself. He can't even fully explain _why-_ \- he didn't bother following in the footsteps of the Old Jedi Order beyond some of their teachings and traditions. They had a building dedicated to their training and they built their own lightsabers to suit their needs and they immersed themselves in the Force to search for that elusive calm it could bring. Emotions were not something to be feared.

But Ben- _Kylo Ren_ \- had fallen to the Dark, and Luke doesn't know _how_ except that it had to have been his fault. That failure had shaken him to the core, and he just- he couldn't-

He and Mara had split to find the students left, but Kylo had brought help. Some _were_ his students, twisted and fallen to the Dark- there were at least half a dozen of those so-called Knights, and the similarity is not lost on him, the Knights of darkness tearing down his attempt to bring back the Jedi Knights of old- and Mara had found Kylo first, and Luke had arrived just to see her die.

All around, the pinpricks of light that were his students were snuffed out, one by one. He hadn't been able to save a single one of them- not _one-_ \- and he had found Rey where she was hiding, had taken his daughter and fled with Artoo into the pouring rain-

He gave his old lightsaber to a friend of Han's. He sent Artoo back to Leia with instructions on how to find him should the need ever arise. He contacted old friends from his time served with the Rebellion and begged them to keep his daughter safe. If he hadn't been able to keep his nephew from falling, what was to say he couldn't prevent the same from happening to his daughter? And with Mara gone- _gone-_ \- it had been all he could do to pilot the ship- he couldn't have kept her safe, not then, not like that-

And when he had finally come back to his senses, when he finally felt stable enough to think that he could take care of her again- but how to explain to a daughter who almost certainly didn't remember him why he had left? How to explain what had happened to her mother?

He doesn't trust himself around his daughter, but here, with Han and Leia in the room, he can't run any longer.

 _People have done_ _ **enough**_ _damage emulating my mistakes, Luke!_

He is seeing his daughter for the first time in fifteen years. He is touching his daughter for the first time in _fifteen years_. Her skin is coarse from desert wind and sand and tanned by the desert sun. She's too pale and too thin, in part from the illness and in part from the harsh life that comes from desert worlds, but he can see some of his face in her's- he can see Mara's nose and Mara's lips- he can see his chin and his jaw- and she has her grandmother's hair. Freckles. Her presence is strong in the Force, even as her body weakens, and it is _Light_ \- soft and warm and bright and harsh at the same time. He closes his eyes, unaware that he is crying, and lets his mind brush against her's.

 _Rey_.

Confusion. Then, shock. Then, confusion. Then-

A hesitant tap against his mental shields, recoiling as quickly as it had come.

He opens his mind to her.

There are no words offered up- instead, he feels a barrage of images and sensations and feelings- _hope-love-warmth_ and _sun-sand-heat_ and the feeling of grit under his fingernails after a sandstorm- a trickle of water over parched lips after a long day- darkness, and the howling wind outside, and a blue glow and laughter in the face of the storm- _loss-fear-alone_ and an ever-present undercurrent of sadness, even in the thrill of adventure- joy of flying- a full meal after a week of next to nothing-

Han and Leia have left. He doesn't notice. They'll come back in a few hours to check on him, but he won't notice that, either.

He lets his thoughts free instead- the pain and regret and the apologies he knows he will never be able to put into words, but will try to do so all the same, because she _deserves_ it, deserves that and so much more than he can give her- the love he has never stopped feeling, though he knows he does not deserve her love in return, a feeling of _safe-protect-care_ he knows she does not need but offers anyway-

-and she recoils for a moment, confused- afraid, even- he fathered her but he is not her father, he is a stranger-

-and she responds, slower this time, growing tired already. A memory, fuzzy around the edges, diluted with the passage of time- carving a mark into a metal wall and chattering excitedly to a figure Luke cannot see but can guess the identity of- she puts down the tool she was using and snatches up a doll- Luke's heart aches, because he remembers her and Mara making it, his wife's eyes sparkling with mirth as she sewed a tiny pilot's uniform- and excitement- _tell me a story, grandpa!_ and _how did you and grandma meet_ \- and the blue glow again and the feeling of love-

The memory recedes, and Luke can't breathe, and his daughter's mind brushes against his one more time before she sinks back into unconsciousness.

-and he bows his head.

* * *

It starts with Finn saying, "We oughta go to Jakku," and Poe staring at him like he's lost his mind.

They're out of the medical complex in the Resistance base and nearing the shipyards, though that's just because the shipyards are en route to the mess hall, and Poe is always hungry. He's not expecting the suggestion, especially considering the personal grudge Finn seems to have against the barren desert planet.

"What," he says eloquently.

"Rey's got stuff there." Finn shrugs. "She's mentioned wanting to go back and get it. And she had BB-8 when I found her, or when she found _me_ , so that means he'll know where she was living. Figure she'll want it back when she wakes up. It'll be a nice surprise for her."

Poe bites his tongue and refrains from saying that the whole reason the two of them practically moved into her room in the medical complex is because they don't want her to die alone. Finn is nothing but optimistic, even if he frets every second of the day that he's awake- Poe has seen too many good soldiers and pilots die to think that Rey has a good chance of making it out of this unscathed.

But Finn was a soldier, too. Poe forgets that a lot. Finn was a soldier- Finn said he watched his best friend bleed out on the ground in front of him on Jakku, and he hadn't been able to fire a shot- Finn knows what death looks like. Finn may be in denial, and Poe won't blame him if he is, but it could just be that same absurd hope that Poe hasn't been able to let go of yet.

And also, they're talking about Rey. Bright, shining, smiling Rey- Jedi Rey- Rey, who went toe-to-toe with Kylo Ren on more than one occasion and _survived-_ \- if anyone can do this, it's Rey.

"Food first, buddy." Poe squeezes his hand. "We're short on pilots, you know, I can't just go hopping across the galaxy on a whim. But I'll see what I can do about getting leave. Then we'll go."

* * *

Anakin and Padme sit at Rey's bedside. Luke hasn't left since he stepped in except to sleep. Rey isn't getting better, but she isn't getting _worse_ , and that's more than anyone expected at this point. Leia still has a Resistance to run, and not all of it can be done from a datapad. Han is a large part of that, now that he's back. So's Chewie.

Padme looks up at the sound of voices, and Anakin's gaze drifts towards the door, and Poe and Finn come in a moment later, lugging a container between them. A potted plant sits on top of it, sandblasted and wilted but still alive, just barely.

"I'm just _saying_ , if you didn't want to go back there, you shouldn't have suggested it."

"There is sand in my shoes. These are new shoes, I didn't even _wear_ them on Jakku."

 _"Sand gets everywhere,"_ Anakin says helpfully. _"You just gotta deal with it."_

"Come on, help me put this stuff out." They set the hovercontainer on the floor, and Finn takes the plant, and Poe opens the case.

They take everything out, though there isn't a lot to take, and then proceed to crash in their bunks for the next forty hours. There's an ancient pilot's helmet, caked in sand, sitting on the cot in the corner. Rey's doll is tucked under her arm while she sleeps.

He and Padme don't need to say anything. There isn't really anything to be said. He leans against his wife and closes his eyes and feels the ebb and flow of the Force around him, and his granddaughter's presence at the center of it all, never dimming.

* * *

It's surprisingly easy to separate the legends from the people who should have been her family. Han Solo and Chewbacca and the _Millennium Falcon-_ \- legends. Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker- legends. Anakin Skywalker- legend. Padme Naberrie- legend.

Han Solo, infamous smuggler and pilot and war hero, is different than her Uncle Han. Uncle Han is calloused hands and a lopsided grin and loud yelling that didn't mean he was angry, he just yelled a lot- ships and stories and the hum of an engine she can feel through the floor. Aunt Leia isn't the grey-haired general and senator, she's laughter and proper and a gentle chiding when Rey plays with her food and nimble fingers carefully braiding her hair. Mara Jade isn't _Mama_ because Mara Jade is just a name and Mama is dead. Luke Skywalker isn't _Papa_ , because Luke Skywalker is a hero and a Jedi and Papa is both of these things, but Papa is also human, and Papa left her, and Papa is kind and patient and sad.

They are legends and she walks among them daily, but they aren't her family. Not yet.

She opens her eyes, feeling very tired- throat dry, body heavy- tendrils of sleep trying to drag her back into oblivion- it had been _warm_ there, at least, and it didn't hurt quite so much.

She sees Grandma and Grandpa sitting in chairs. She sees a stranger sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed, breathing slow. He has a beard. His hair is gray.

She closes her eyes.

She is not the child of legends, she is _Rey_. Nothing more, nothing less.

And yet, as she falls back asleep- _asleep_ , this time, not unconscious, not comatose- she feels a part of her soul ease.

* * *

 **So ends the first installment of the found families 'verse.**

 **As of right now, eight of these stories have been uploaded to my account on AO3, the link to which can be found in my profile, if you're looking to read ahead. I'm currently in the process of transferring them here for easier access by readers, but updates to the series will be to both sites. If you want to be notified for future stories in the series, you can subscribe to Flora Obsidian down below on FFnet, or floraobsidian on AO3, or bookmark one of the pages and check back periodically if you don't have an account.**

 **As always, thank you very much for reading, and I hope you all enjoyed!**


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